


sunrise golden over the land

by nightdotlight



Series: Jedi June 2020 [5]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends: Republic (Comics)
Genre: Gen, Lightsaber Training, The Force
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-21
Updated: 2020-06-21
Packaged: 2021-03-04 07:54:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,650
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24846391
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nightdotlight/pseuds/nightdotlight
Summary: Glitch’s hands tremble where they grip his newly acquired lightsaber, but he doesn’t filter. Starts the kata, and lets the energy hum through him.Master Fay had refused to teach him this, had said that she doesn’t carry a lightsaber and could not teach him to fight with one— but that she knew someone who could.
Relationships: Glitch & Fay, Glitch & Jon Antilles
Series: Jedi June 2020 [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1776460
Comments: 15
Kudos: 55





	sunrise golden over the land

**Author's Note:**

> day five: restraint/discipline

The nights of Lothal are warm in summer, and stars glitter over a 187th purple sky.

All around Glitch, the air is like a caress. The Force thrums through the ground, through the mountains. Flows through him, with every breath he takes, and embraces him openly when he allows the boundaries of his awareness to  _ just _ overlap with those of his physical body.

At his feet, an ant scuttles away, likely to join the rest of its colony in the hard-packed earth. They work so  _ hard _ , and for so little reward.

Kind of like Jedi. That won’t stop him from becoming one, though.

Glitch’s hands tremble where they grip his newly acquired lightsaber, but he doesn’t filter. Starts the kata, and lets the energy hum through him.

Master Fay had refused to teach him this, had said that she doesn’t carry a lightsaber and could not teach him to fight with one— but that she knew someone who could.

So she had brought him to Jon, and Glitch had been intimidated at first, by the way the Jedi had stood. By the deep shadow cast over his eyes, and the scars, and the way that he walked, even. Like a predator, and Glitch’s instincts had set alight with a whisper of  _ hide, run, fight. _

But then Fay had placed her hand on his shoulder, which was reassurance enough, on its own— except then both she and the mysterious, intimidating Jedi had sent a pulse of calm to him, and the Force had shown him—

_ Trees overhead, and water around the ankles like a reminder, and air so humid that each breath is solid in his lungs. Purpose, moving through it all, like a heat haze directed through the universe, and faith, clear and certain like the tree roots sinking through the mud beneath his feet. _

In contrast, Master Fay is like sunlight on the steepest face and summit of a mountain. Overwhelming, and serene, but her foundations span centuries, an eternity of rock stretching down into the fabric of the galaxy. Awe-inspiring, certainly, and more than a little terrifying. But Glitch can see how he is similar to her and her to him.

The Force flows, and it links Master Fay and Master Jon together, just as it links Glitch to both of them.

And really, there’s nobody he’d rather follow.

Now, Glitch fixes the image of how Jon’s body had formed each shape in his mind, recreates it. It’s not perfect— not even passable, yet, the mere week they’ve spent having done very little so far— but he knows that progress will come.

It’s like shooting a blaster rifle. You don’t know how far you’ve come until you get your first bullseye— and only then do you think back to the first day, of being unable to even hold the weapon higher than your chest.

Discipline is something every clone trooper etches onto their bones. It comes with no small amount of time, and patience, and sometimes endless, endless repetition of the simplest things until they’re second nature.

Glitch can disassemble a Z-6 in twenty seconds flat. He’s always been good at the repetition bit, has no qualms about practicing a task for hours on end. As a cadet, he would sink into the training, let his mind reach out to fill his body and be clear with every movement.

It was something he’d happily do for hours, to the confusion of most  _ vode _ — and to Glitch himself, really. He hadn’t understood what was so different to him about it, why it felt so freeing.

Hadn’t, really, until he had first seen General Utrila practicing katas in the hangar bay during the night shift. Her eyes were closed, her body silhouetted by a backdrop of stars that she could not see— but he had felt it, her serenity leaking into the air around her that was the same as his, the way her presence had stretched out. Filling her body, inhabiting it, and then expanding even further to flow through Glitch, his  _ vode _ , even the stars beyond.

And Glitch had  _ known _ .

Master Jon practices his katas in a way that’s a little different to Utrila. His movements are stronger, more forceful— angular where each stroke of the saber begins and ends. So different to the General, who even in the Force had given Glitch a sense of water rushing over rocks; and her fighting style had reflected that.

Glitch takes both of those things— the physicality, the fluidity— and tries to translate them into his own movements. His limbs are jerky, strikes stiff, but he lets them be so— goes again, goes slower. Breaks down each strike into separate milliseconds of movement, focuses equally on each one. Simplifies them, even, when he still can’t manage parts of the kata, and vows to work on those places later.

It’s exhausting work, and demanding, and before long there’s sweat soaking the roots of his hair and dropping down the back of his neck, but he doesn’t stop. Back on Kamino, it wouldn’t be allowed, and he can’t bring himself to break the habit now.

His linen shirt is soaked at the back. He strips it off into a heap on the ground beside him and continues.

Back on Kamino, Glitch had devoured whatever information he could glean from the holonet on wildlife. One of the books he had found on a holonet library had talked about ants. They exist as one part of a whole, an individual member of a group body. Working for the good of the many, so  _ tirelessly _ .

Horns had ruffled his hair, called him a  nerd with affection in his tone, and overall that was the general reaction from most brothers. But once he had crossed paths with a CC cadet while he read—  _ Gree, his name was Gree—  _ and the CC hadn’t laughed at him. Just ruffled his hair, and called him  _ vod’ika _ , and shown him where he could find a bit more information, on  _ other _ species of ants.

He isn’t sure if they’d entirely appreciate the comparison, but Jedi do remind him of ants. Hardworking, disciplined; would the Jedi Temple count as a hive? He’s not fully sure.

There’s a choked-off laugh from behind him. Glitch turns, and—  _ kriff _ , he must’ve broadcast that last thought by accident, because Jon’s lips twist subtly with stifled mirth and he casts his face downwards, the shadows cast over his expression a mask.

“I personally don’t mind the comparison,” he says, “but you’ve been practicing for hours, now. If you are tired, it would be better you rest, and try again in the morning.”

Glitch’s first instinct is to grimace, and he can’t quite keep it off his face. “Master Jon,” he begins, “isn’t it better I continue to practice? You told me that Jedi Knights must know these katas off by heart, if they hope to ever duel with some proficiency.”

Jon sighs, and looks him square in the face, and— he could be wrong, but for a second it looks like there’s something rueful and ragged in his eyes. “Perhaps,” he allows, and smiles, a small and strangled thing, “and your discipline does you credit, Glitch. You must learn control over yourself and your lightsaber, as all Jedi must— that is true. But control comes in more ways than just one.”

Intrigued and more than a little confused, Glitch deactivates his saber and clips it to his belt. “What do you mean, Master Jon?” He asks, and— that’s another thing. Jon never calls him Padawan, almost shies from the word, and the first time Glitch addressed him only as Master, he had visibly flinched— a disconcerting reaction, from someone so dangerous, because what would he ever have to be afraid of?

There’s that smile again, cautious and hinting sadness at its edges. “You’re tired, and you need to sleep, but you’re still out here, practicing,” Jon points out. “You have discipline, and the smarts to know that you should stop. But you’re out here still, because you lack the restraint to stop when you should.

“Your progress today was admirable. But you must remember to be patient with yourself, because some things will only come with time. Repetition will help you learn katas; but if you are to be a Jedi, you must also learn self-control, and to see what must be, rather than only what you think you need or want to do. That is what you must learn alongside your discipline in order to become a Jedi.”

“Understood, Master Jon,” Glitch says, and as he walks back towards the camp, each step feels like a regret.

When he wakes up the next morning, it’s not that he feels  _ different _ per se. It’s more that in all the world’s colours, the undertones seem to have changed. Sunrise, when he opens his eyes, is warmer, more yellow; the Lothal sky seems a richer blue, with more depth than he could ever measure.

An ant skitters over his face, and he jerks, yelps. Seems they, at least, feel at home with him.

He eats, and after, Jon calls him over to where they stood the night prior.

The imprints of where Glitch’s feet stirred the dust are still there, without a breeze to change them. Out of impulse, he skids the side of his boot through them, disrupting the pattern, and lets the faint mist of bewilderment from Jon pass through him.

“Come on,” Jon tells him, and ignites his lightsaber, settling into a stance Glitch isn’t fully familiar with. Green light intermingles with the golden-yellow of sunrise, makes the scars on his uncovered face shine silver. “We’re starting Ataru today. I thought it might help you with your precision.”

_ Restraint _ , he means. Glitch’s exasperated roll of eyes is entirely good natured.

He ignites his own lightsaber, deep blue light against the horizon, and lets the Force  _flow_ .

**Author's Note:**

> this... resisted the writing process, we could say.
> 
> reading back through this morning after I fell asleep writing it was an experience. ants?? really? I understand where I was coming from but still. I think I made it work?
> 
> jon’s characterisation is inspired by [ blackkat’s ](https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackkat/pseuds/blackkat) fics, so go and read her work!


End file.
